1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to method and apparatus for simultaneous comparison of multiple backup sets maintained in a computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer systems typically include many computers coupled to a network. For data protection, such computer systems can include one or more backup appliances for backing up data stored on the computers. For example, a computer network may include a server configured to manage a domain in the computer system (referred to as a “domain controller”). The domain controller is configured to store information about network resources of the domain in a database. The database can include a hierarchical structure of objects that represent these network resources. A backup appliance can be configured to backup the database of the domain controller. Typically, the backup appliance would perform such a backup task periodically according to a schedule. As such, the backup appliance can maintain several different copies of the backed up data (referred to as “backup sets”). A database of a domain controller is just one example of a type of data that can be backed-up in a computer system. For example, other types of databases can be backed-up, such as e-mail databases and the like. In another example, other types of data can be backed-up, such as file systems, disk images, and the like for various workstation computers in the computer system.
A backup appliance can restore backed-up data to a target computer in the computer system. In cases where multiple backup sets are maintained, an administrator must select an appropriate backup set to restore. In some cases, the entire backup set is restored (“complete restore”). In other cases, only some objects in a backup set need to be restored (“granular restore”). A backup set may include a large number of objects. Thus, for a granular restore, an administrator might have to search through and compare a large number of objects across many backup sets to search for particular versions of the objects to be restored. This searching and comparison can be time consuming and error prone.